Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Spring fashion show

Curtis Granderson — former Detroit Tiger, even more former Mankato Masher and now a new member of the New York Yankees — combines his trademark high socks with the Yankees workout gear. Derek Jeter can't bear to look.

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It's been more than a week since my last post, a rare bit of on-line silence from me caused by a shortage of compelling baseball news and a bit of a virus.

But it's time to re-emerge. The first major league training camps officially open today.

Not the Twins. They're typically one of the last to open camp, and in their case pitchers and catchers don't report until Sunday with first workouts on Monday.

All that's official, of course. Unofficially, players are already throwing balls and swinging bats at the various spring training facilities — as seen in the above Granderson-Jeter pic.

Meanwhile ...

Johnny Damon remains without team. Various reports have the Tigers being the lead suitors for the alleged outfielder, although at this point it's difficult to imagine that Detroit has indeed offered him a two-year, $14 million deal. He and greed-master agent Scott Boras can't possibly imagine at this point that anybody else is going to surpass, or even match, that figure.

Boras got dumped last week by another unsigned player, Felipe Lopez. The (sarcastic phrase alert) always classy Boras responded: "We wish Felipe well. He's a fine player. We understand that a player gets frustrated when we contact all 30 teams numerous times and there is not a starting job for him."

Methinks there was a starting job for him — at a certain price point.

Just as there was a price point at which Damon would still be a Yankee.